This artist’s sculptures only appear if you stand in the right spot— here's how he does it

  • Michael Murphy creates perceptual art which only appears if you're standing in the right spot. 
  • He's created pieces for brands like Lexus, Jordans, Toyota, and more.
  • We visited his studio to see how he creates a piece like this.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Following is a transcript of the video. 

Narrator: This may look like just a jumble of old, painted plastic and wire, but when you take a step back... you see it for what it really is — a remarkable sculpture suspended in midair. 

People say that perspective is everything. Well, artist Michael Murphy's work literally depends on your perspective. 

You'll only see the image if you're standing in the exact right spot.

Giving his sculptures this effect requires an intense level of planning, mapping out where each seemingly random piece of puzzle needs to fall to create an image our eyes understand.

It took him about 20 minutes to design and install each one of the 3,200 parts, meaning that it took 1,067 hours just to make the piece. But making this art starts well before the installation process.

We paid a visit to his studio in Brooklyn, New York, where he's working on some of his newest pieces, to learn how he is able to turn these scattered parts into one single image that appears when you're standing in the right spot.  

Michael Murphy: "I always say we have to have at least 30 pieces in order for it to be exciting to walk around it and see it shift. "

Narrator: All of the sculptures Michael makes are renderings of flat images in 3D spaces. 

The first step is always picking the images he'd like to use. He takes the photos to make sure the entire piece is original work.  

One of the most critical parts is figuring out how he's going to break the image apart. To do this, he uses a 3D software. 

The software helps him figure out how the image is going to be separated and expanded and how it's going to exist in its new 3D space. 

All that information from the software is pulled into spreadsheets with measurements for string lengths and a map of where all the parts are placed. This map is usually in a computer-aided design file. 

Then, all the data is brought into the shop. This is where Michael turns the numbers and maps on paper into reality. 

At the studio, he works with his team to measure and cut the wooden dowels and strings, print and glue the images, create the frames the pieces are going to hang from, and figure out the most important piece of the puzzle — finding where exactly someone needs to stand to actually see the piece come to life. 

For this step, he uses three lasers and a measuring tape.

Typically, a piece is made up of thousands of parts that are hung by individual strings. 

For his upcoming piece that looks like an eye, Michael is working out a simpler installation technique using wooden rods. It would create that same illusion, but where one rod will hold more than one part at a time, making installation time a lot shorter.

The piece will be able to keep the same illusion and magic of perceptual art, but with fewer separate parts. 

That magical shift, where you see all the pieces align to form one "photograph," is the result of something called the parallax effect.

It refers to the apparent movement of an object when viewed from different positions. 

This effect is probably something you've experienced before. Think about when you're driving in a car on a highway and you watch the poles pass by quickly, while the trees in the distance slowly drift by.  

These artworks are all broken up into a series of pieces, parts, and for me it's determined by the parallax. The parallax effect that happens, you have to have a large number of parts.

To get an estimate of how long it's going to take to complete a piece, he has to figure out the time it takes to create and install each part of the bigger picture. Getting it to come out exactly as planned is no small feat.

Michael Murphy: "I've had some pieces where every single string was completely tangled up and it took as long as 20 hours to untangle strings, which gets a little tedious."  

Narrator: Michael has been creating these perceptual art pieces for 25 years. 

He first gained popularity for a sculpture portrait of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. 

Since then, he's worked with big brands including Lexus, Jordans, Toyota, and more.

Michael's goal is to have his work send a message in a visual way that's easy to digest in order to capture people's attention. To do that, he's used lots of different materials, from cardboard and trash to gold. 

Michael Murphy: "I think, however someone interprets the artwork, that is what that artwork means to that person and therefore that is what that artwork is communicating."


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